The Mile High City

Thursday, July 22, 2010 1 comments

The Mile High City

**just a small note: I fixed the many typos in yesterday's post - the result of a late night posting with the spell check turned off**

Wednesday, July 21^st (For some reason, I keep typing June whenever I write the date. This makes me slightly sad, since it means we have less than a month left of summer :/)

Well folks, I am writing this post as I sit on an airplane headed for Minneapolis. This is of EXTREME importance as this marks the first time while travelling that my computer usage was not dictated by the location of the nearest outlet. Imagine! A portable laptop that is actually portable! Oh the little things that brighten my day.

Morning Preparations

Since our plane was not schedule to depart RDU til 6:15 pm, we had the whole morning to pack and prepare for our trip. This actually turned out to be a huge problem, because it gave me the false impression that I could actually sleep the night before. WRONG. Despite waking up at 7:45 am and running around all morning, I still ended up sprinting out of the house an hour late.

Because I mean, of course, several hours had to spent this morning making the finalized touches on my blog. Priorities. And time also had to be spent running to banks making absolutely sure that I would have access to money in India. They assured me I would, but I am still extremely skeptical.

Packing was nothing short of a miracle. We’ve had the Miracle of Santa Anna, the Miracle on 49^th Street, the Miracle on Ice… This was the Miracle of Extreme Space Shrinkage. Since, as I mentioned in the previous post, that I would be leaving directly from California for India, I was in fact packing for a total of 4 weeks.

The difficultly arose in that I needed to bring not only casual clothing for every day wear in India and on the West Coast, but also hiking attire, business attire (full suit included), and four different pairs of shoes (ugh. I miss the days where gritty old Rainbows could suffice for all occasions). The goal? To fit ALL of that…in a single carryon.

So can I just get a round of applause please? Because I actually did it. It involved much rolling of clothes, army-style, and a few sittings on top of the suitcase, but it is all in there. No checked luggage! Take that, you pesky airlines who want to sap every dime and dollar from their passengers. Though I’m not sure who will be laughing when I break my back trying to carry a bag whose weight is akin to the Rock of Gibraltar.

The scheduled departure time was 3pm. Then 3:30. By the time 4pm rolled around, we were all yelling and sprinting up and down the stairs hurriedly gathering anything that we might’ve forgotten. So I’m pretty sure I have forgotten something. Ah well.

Raleigh-Durham International

Check in went relatively stress-free. That is, until we discovered that Dad’s driver’s license had expired. Whoops. And every single TSA agent at every checkpoint pointed this out, just in case we had forgotten in those last few minutes. Luckily they still let him through so dad is sitting here with us on the plane.

Today also marked the first time I got to experience a full body scan going through security. So cool! However, it seems a bit stupid as you could easily pick the line withOUT the full body scan. As a terrorist, why would you volunteer for that?

Dad got singled out again, as they searched all of his belongings, wiping down his computer and analyzing the residue to see if he was sneaking in a bomb that was masquerading as an ancient Dell laptop. This of course prompted many bomb jokes on my part as the gentleman beside me gave me bewildered glances. Mom suggested that next time we dress Dad up in a full-out sheik outfit to see how many “random” searches he is subjected to. Plus side, Dad’s laptop is now clean! Thanks for the complimentary wipe down, TSA agents.

RDU to Minneapolis

The flight was fairly event-free, with the main excitement being the scarfing down of a BBQ sandwich while sprinting to our gate so as to board on time. Also, I must say that I am probably one of the few people in the world that doesn’t enjoy the extra legroom that being in an exit row offers. Makes it more difficult to curl up and stick your feet in the pocket in front of you.

Minneapolis to Denver

The Minneapolis airport was huge, and was filled with many interesting shopping places, like the Moose store (equipped with a giant moose standing guard at the entrance) and the Fox News store. Yes I might’ve looked like an idiot, but I had to get a picture. Seriously, a whole store for Fox News?!

We then spend the remainder of a layover eating off of the ever nutritious dollar menu at McDonald’s and cursing at the fact that I couldn’t hack my way onto the Armed Forces Service Network and steal their wireless.

The flight itself started out interestingly as the woman next to me talked in this really slow voice and kept talking about how she needed to take her meds and she couldn’t find these meds and how she couldn’t sit in the middle seat and need an aisle seat to take her meds…. I was getting creeped out. She said it was for anxiety but I was pretty sure that f she didn’t get her meds, her alternate personality would show up and kill me. That would’ve been a sucky start to our trip.

Denver

We arrive safely in Denver, the mile high city. 5,280 feet above sea level. My question is: is that measured from the top of the stairs or the bottom?

Since we arrived at night (around 11pm local time) we couldn’t see much of the city except that it was oddly flat. Maybe it’s on a plateau? We take a shuttle (that I’m pretty sure was just a sauna on wheels disguised cleverly as a van) to our illustrious accommodations for the evening, Sleep Inn. There I nearly bite the heads off of everyone present until I am fed. Happily sated, I pass out for the evening, ending this day’s adventures.